


Fidelity

by Doodleflip



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 22:57:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18647824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doodleflip/pseuds/Doodleflip
Summary: After the war, Sansa Stark begins to rebuild herself as Lady of the Eyrie and a dutiful wife to Harrold Hardyng. But when a visitor from her past threatens to upset this fragile peace, Sansa finds herself thinking for the first time in years of what it really means to live - to live, and not just to survive.





	1. Courage

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning, this is pure wish fulfillment - plot is minimal, sex is graphic, and far too much time is spent describing what everyone is wearing. But it's been languishing on my hard-drive for years and I figured it might appeal to other people too. Canon-compliant (up to A Dance with Dragons) but so ridiculously optimistic about how that all turns out it might as well be a crackfic. Definitely not compliant with the TV show. Enjoy!
> 
> P.S. And if you're just here for the smut (no judgement), it's in the first and last chapters. ;)

One evening after the war, Sansa Stark, Lady of the Eyrie, sat in her tower and sewed. It was quiet there, but the rest of the castle was livelier now than it had been when little Robert Arryn was lord. She was happy here, too, though she had not thought she would be. Her remaining family were far away and her lord husband did not love her, but Harry was kind and she had friends again for the first time in years. But she still enjoyed the stillness of her own chambers sometimes, a little time to herself.

She had made them beautiful. They were small but elegantly proportioned, with windows that opened onto open sky and empty air. She had rugs and tapestries in pretty silken shades, finely carved furniture and scatterings of sweet smelling wildflowers. Tonight she had a fire roaring in the hearth to shake off the winter chill and a cup of Arbor gold at her elbow. Laid across her knees was a banquet gown of pale gold with elaborate patterns of small white pearls on the bodice, some of which had come loose. The one she wore was far simpler, deep blue bordered in white with a low scooped neck. At eighteen years her rare beauty was more striking than ever. She was slender but with a woman’s shape nonetheless, skin pale as new snow. Her features were delicate, her mouth red and her eyes the same deep blue as her dress. Her glossy auburn hair tumbled almost to her waist now, unbound but for a few simple braids drawing it back from her face. Her only adornment was a silver brooch wrought in the shape of a dragonfly.

Ellard’s knock on the door startled her.

“There’s a visitor, my lady.”

“Could you see to him, Ellard?” With Lord Harrold away, Sansa held the Eyrie in his name, but she was loathe to disturb her peaceful mood for business.

“I’m afraid not, my lady, he specifically asked for you. He says you know him, but he won’t give his name.”

“What does he look like?”

“Well he won’t show his face neither, but he’s dressed like one of them poor brothers. Big man, with an accent from the Westerlands if I’m any judge.”

She couldn’t begin to think who that might be, but she was curious. “Show him in, Ellard, but put guards outside the door if you’d be so good. I’ll call if I need them.”

The old steward bowed and retreated. Whoever her mysterious visitor was, Sansa thought, he was lucky Harry was away. Her lord husband would have taken offence and turned him away at the gate. Perhaps he would be right to. She would see soon enough.

Ellard returned a few minutes later with her guest.

“The guards will be outside, my lady,” he said, with a pointed glance at the other. She nodded and waited until he had pulled the door closed behind him before turning to examine the man in front of her.

He was a big man, just as Ellard had said. Well over six foot in height and heavily muscled, with a sword across his back near as long as Sansa was tall. He was dressed as a brother of the Faith, though she had never known the brothers to go armed. His roughspun brown robe was travel-stained and his dark cloak was heavily patched. His face was veiled and hooded. And she couldn’t think who he might be.

“You are very welcome here, brother,” she said to him, “but I am afraid I do not know you.”

“Don’t you?” He chuckled, and pulled back his hood. And she knew him then, she knew him at once, but it made no sense at all.

It was a hard face, never handsome, with dark eyes, dark beard and dark ragged hair, but it was the scars that set him apart. They covered all the left side of his face, an angry tangle of red and black flesh. He looked just as he had when last she’d seen him, more than six years ago, but he had been dead for four of those. Yet here he was.

“Nothing to say?” A cruel smile twisted his mouth. “No pretty words for me, after all this time?”

“You... I thought you were dead. The whole kingdom thinks you are dead.”

“Aye, and they’re right. The Hound died in the riverlands. I’m just a poor brother of the Faith."

“But... How is it no one recognised you? You – “ She stopped, flushing as she realised what she had been about to say.

“I’ve got a very memorable face?” he suggested. “Lucky for me the brothers hide their faces and aren't much fond of smalltalk. With that, well. I’m just a big man. And the realm is full of big men. You didn’t recognise me either.”

“I... Oh, I’m sorry.” In her flustered state, Sansa’s courtesies had fled her. “You’ve been travelling, you must be tired. Would you like something to eat? A bath, or a bed?”

He shrugged. “Some wine would be welcome.”

“Of – of course.” She jumped to her feet, fussing with the flagon. Her hand trembled as she poured and a little spilled on the table but she hardly saw it. She handed him the cup and moved to return to her own seat but as she did so he caught her wrist. She tugged, but his grip was iron and she could not pull free. 

"Are you really still afraid of me, girl?” he rasped, leering at her. “Even after everything you’ve seen?”

She was, but she had grown enough that she did not wish to admit it. Instead she met his gaze levelly and said, “You’re hurting me.”

He released her and she sat down, glad for the yard of carpet between them. He took a long swallow of wine, closing his eyes as he did so. “A little sweet for my taste,” he commented, “and expensive too, I don’t doubt, but it does the job.”

“Why are you here?”

“My my,” he said, cocking an eyebrow at her. “You’re a lady in truth now and no mistake. You have the castle and the knightly husband, and you have the haughty attitude too, it seems. Your courtesies are too good to waste on the likes of me, I suppose you’ve learnt that by now. You used to chirp away at me in King’s Landing, all your pretty phrases. Used to drive me mad. Never thought I’d have cause to miss it.” He took another mouthful of wine.

She folded her arms. “I asked you a question.”

“Aye, you did. And at least you’ve still the sense not to call me ser. I can appreciate that.” He shrugged. “I’m here because I’ve nowhere better to be. No master, no loyalties, no life. I heard you were still alive and thought I’d see for myself. Save you if you needed saving, protect you if you needed protecting. Kill anyone who needed killing.”

“I...” She had no idea what she should say to that. She didn’t think it likely there was a proper response to someone you thought dead turning up and offering to kill people for you. But then proper responses had never got her very far with him anyway, she supposed.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” she managed at last.

“You might well be the only one, girl.”

“What happened to you anyway?” She asked. “After... well. After the Blackwater.”

“After I turned craven, you mean.” She flinched at that, but he didn’t so much as blink. “I rode out into the countryside. Drank myself stupid and got captured by Dondarrion’s little band. They’d never have tried it if I was sober. I killed him, too, in some farce they called a trial, but the bloody red priest went and brought him back to life. And then they robbed me blind and called it justice, and put me out on the road again.” He drank. “I ran into your sister after that, the skinny wolf bitch. Tried to get to Riverrun to ransom her, but ran into the Red Wedding instead. Saved her bloody life and even then tried to ransom her here, to your aunt, instead of giving her to the Queen, but she goes and leaves me for dead at the Trident regardless.” He snorted with laughter, but there was no humour in it. “Ungrateful little whore.”

Once, only days ago, she might have screamed at him for that or ordered him from her presence. But she had been ill with worry and with no idea whether Arya was living or dead. It was different now. Only yesterday a raven had come from Winterfell to say that Arya was alive and well and coming home from across the narrow sea. She had been so happy she had danced, but even so she could well believe that her sister had done exactly what he said she had. Sansa didn’t like to hear him speak so harshly against her, but then, she didn’t have any love for what Arya had done either. And so she let it go.

But he didn’t continue. He was staring into his cup, lost somewhere in the past.

“And?” she prompted gently. “After Arya, what happened?”

“I died.” His voice was quiet now, though it had lost none of its harshness. “I died on the Trident. And when I woke the afterlife was silent as the grave itself and full of old men.”

Sansa refilled his cup. Her own was still nearly full and that seemed impolite somehow, so she took a deep draught and had to fight the need to cough when she swallowed.

“The brothers found me on the bank and I asked for mercy, but they wouldn’t give it. Their faith doesn’t allow them to kill. What kind of gods build a world of such pain and suffering without giving their servants leave to end it? It’s obscene. But anyway, they didn’t kill me. They took me back to their island instead and made me as well as they could, though it took years until I was well again. I still have the limp, even now. They made me one of their own. Gave me meals to eat and graves to dig and tried to make a peaceful man of me.” He laughed again. “That part didn’t work nearly so well as they thought. They thought they had me, after they told me Gregor was dead. I suppose I went mad for a while. I don’t remember any of it, but they told me later they had to chain me to my bed while I slept. For fear I’d destroy myself in my rage, they said, but it was themselves they were afraid for. And then afterwards...” He shook his head. “There was nothing. Nothing at all. I didn’t feel a thing for years. I just ate and slept and worked. I wasn’t even angry. Like a fucking ghost, like one of them. They made me one of them and everything, made me say the words. As if words ever changed a bloody thing, but I barely noticed even that.” He drained his cup and reached for the flagon to refill it without asking her. “And then the news started to come in. We heard things... The war is over. Joffrey is dead. Cersei is dead.” His face twisted. “Sansa Stark is Lady of the Eyrie. The Hound joined the outlaws. All the old names I thought I’d forgotten. And I came back and I remembered what I was.”

“And they just let you go?”

He started slightly, as if he had forgotten she was there, then snorted and shook his head. “Of course not. They sent me out to bring back any wounded they might help, any new brothers that might join them. Aye, and I might do it yet, if I can’t find a life I like better out here in the world. But I’m bloody well going to look for one first.”

“What will you do?”

“I don’t bloody know, do I? I wouldn’t be here if I did. You know that as well as I do. Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”

"What would you _like_ to do, then?” There. She felt frustrated. _That_ , at least, was a question she didn’t know the answer to.

But he didn’t answer, only looked at her. There was something strange and nameless in his eyes and he looked like he was drowning. Then he looked away.

“And you,” he growled. “How did you survive the war? It should have killed you, fragile little thing.”

“I don’t know.” Now that the time had come to tell her story, she felt hesitant and shy. She hadn’t told it to anyone, not all of it. There had been no one to tell, before now. “After you left, Petyr – Lord Baelish – arranged to take me from King’s Landing. I thought it was Ser Dontos at the time, but Petyr was only paying him to pretend, and – “

“Wait,” he interrupted. “Who’s Ser Dontos?”

“Ser Dontos was the knight on Joffrey’s nameday, the drunken one. Joffrey nearly drowned him in wine but I said he should be made a fool instead. And you helped me,” she remembered suddenly. “I told him it was bad luck to kill a man on your nameday, and he didn’t believe me, but when you agreed with me he gave in.”

He nodded. “I remember. It was horseshit.”

“Petyr killed him, anyway. After he got me out of the city. And then he promised me he’d bring me home, but he lied. He said he didn’t, that he never said Winterfell, but he let me think it all the same. I was so happy, until I realised, and even then it was better than the Red Keep.” She took a sip of wine, savouring the feeling of warmth in her tummy. “He brought me to the Fingers instead, and then the Eyrie. He married my Aunt Lysa and told everyone I was his bastard daughter.” She shook her head. “I was called Alayne for so long, I almost forgot who I really was.”

The Hound scowled. “I can’t believe they bought it. As if you could ever be Littlefinger’s whelp. _Littlefinger_.”

She wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that, so she pushed it aside and continued. “After I left King’s Landing I heard that they were trying Tyrion for Joffrey’s murder, and they wanted me for it as well. That frightened me so badly that I didn’t care what they did with me, as long as the Queen couldn’t find me. They meant for me to marry Robert, I think, but Lysa hated me. Once Petyr kissed me in the garden, and she saw, and she tried to push me out the Moon Door, but he found us and pushed her out instead. He told everyone a singer did it, but he did it himself. He saved my life.” She glanced up, feeling his eyes on her. His expression was murderous.

“He kissed you?”

“Yes. I – I never wanted it, but he said I looked like my mother, and I owed him so much, I... I didn’t feel I could say no. He made me kiss him, and he touched me sometimes, but he never did any more than that. And he saved my life.”

She looked up at him again, but he said nothing more. “After that it was quieter. I stayed here, looking after Robert, while Petyr bargained with the Lords Declarant and tried to keep us safe. He arranged for me to marry Lord Harrold too. He said he’d give me Winterfell, and the Eyrie too, as a wedding gift. Robert wasn’t even dead then, but he said he would be soon, and he was right. Robert was always sickly. He died five years ago, just as the war was ending, but Petyr waited another year before the wedding, just to be sure it was safe to declare me. My brother Bran was found only a few days later, the heir. Harry didn’t seem to mind too much, or at least not that he showed me, but Petyr was furious. He was riding North to try and negotiate a claim of some sort for me when the outlaws caught him, and hanged him.” She shuddered. “I didn’t love him, but I wouldn’t have wished him dead. Not like that.”

“If they knew who you were, and the Imp was still alive, then how did you marry your lord husband?” The title became a curse in his mouth.

“They got a septon to free me from my vows. I don’t – I mean, we never...” She trailed off, feeling the heat rising in her cheeks. The Hound’s expression was unreadable.

“And your new husband?”

“Lord Harrold is a good man,” she said. Somehow it didn’t seem right to call him Harry in front of the Hound. “He is gallant and brave, and he is kind to me. I am happy with him.”

He snorted, taking a long draught from his cup. “Such a pretty little bird, and still so foolish. Has war taught you nothing, girl? Your head is as full of songs as it ever was. Give a man a pleasant face and you think him half a god. There _are_ no good men, no good husbands. No good bloody knights. The world is full of liars and murderers and cravens, and your _good men_ are the worst of them. There are monsters everywhere, but you prefer not to see them. You prefer your songs and your stories and your blindness. It’ll kill you some day. I’m amazed you’re not dead already.”

“You’re wrong,” she said softly.

“Am I?” He laughed, and leaned forward so his scarred face was only inches from her own. “Then be brave, little bird, and tell me why. Or are you still afraid?”

She could smell him. He smelled of sweat and earth and metal and horses. And wine. He was drunk, she realised, though not overly so, not yet. Her own head felt a little heavy too, though she had drunk far less than he had. It made her brave.

“I’m not afraid of you, and you’re wrong,” she said firmly. “I don’t love Harry and he doesn’t love me. He’s vain and pompous and he gets more bastards every day, but none of those things make him a monster. He is kind and fair and he treats people with respect. That’s all I need. I don’t need him to love me. It is enough that he doesn’t hurt me, and that one day I might count him as a friend.”

There was a long silence, and at last he sighed and looked away. “Oh my little bird,” he said, his voice so quiet she had to strain to hear it. “But you deserve so much more than that.”

“The world does not give anyone what they deserve,” she answered. “You taught me that.”

For a time they sat in silence. “I was always so afraid of you,” she said at last. “A child’s fear. It wasn’t even the scars, or at least not only that. It was just that you were so angry all the time, so hateful. You hated everything in the world and you hated me as well, I could see it, but I never realised that of all of them, you were the one I had least reason to fear.”

He frowned. “I never hated you.”

“You did,” she insisted. “You hated how foolish I was, how innocent, how blind. You hated me for being weak and for not knowing to hide it. I was a silly child, and you hated me, but you saved me anyway.”

“I never saved you either. I let them hurt you, I let them beat you. I frightened you, I held a knife to your throat. I even meant to rape you, the night I left.”

“But you didn’t.”

“That doesn’t matter a damn if I meant to. I’m not here for your gratitude girl, I don’t need it. I only came to see that you were safe.”

“Exactly.” A sad smile tugged her lips. “I prayed for you, you know. That you would survive the war. And that you would be less angry if you did.”

That made him laugh. “Your gods only managed half of that.”

“No,” she shook her head. “You’re quieter now than you were, a little at least. And you’re free. That must be worth something.”

He shrugged. “A dog needs a master. It doesn’t know what to do with freedom.”

“But the Hound is dead, you said. You buried him yourself. And Sandor Clegane is a man, not a dog.” She touched his arm, but hesitated then, uncertain. He looked down at her hand, his face hidden from her. But then he looked up, and met her gaze. His expression was guarded, but she saw something else there too, something raw and painful. And then quickly, before she could lose her nerve, she leaned forward and laid a chaste kiss on his lips.

When she pulled back, the world was holding its breath. Sandor looked only astonished, there was no room for any emotion more complex on his face. But she met his gaze again and she smiled, feeling shyer than she ever had in her life. Fingers trembling, she reached up and pushed back the hair from his face. It was heavy with dried sweat and the dirt of the road, but she didn’t care. And then she kissed him again, on the cheek this time. Then his temple, his forehead, the ruin of his scars. Small sweet kisses. A maiden’s kisses, though she was a woman wed now and not a maiden any more.

“No,” he said. His voice was even rougher than usual but he caught her shoulder and held her firm, away from him. “This is cruel, and you should not have this cruelty in you, girl. Not you.”

“How is it cruel?” She was confused. “I only- “

He closed his eyes, grimacing as though he were in pain. “Don’t mock me. Don’t taunt me with this. _Please_.”

The fact that he used the word 'please' was terrifying in itself. “I – I don’t understand. Explain, please explain, I don’t know what you mean.” She was utterly lost. Somehow, she had done something horribly wrong, but she could not know what that was.

When his eyes opened again it was the old Hound she saw in them, full of fury. “Oh the little bird would like an explanation, would she,” he growled, rising to his feet. Standing, he was almost seven feet of muscle and metal and rage, and Sansa quailed before him. Part of her swore he’d never hurt her, but another part was far less certain. “She’d like me to make it easy for her, like everyone else does. Well bugger that, I won’t do it. I’m no toy of yours, and I won’t let you play me.” He laughed, but it was not a happy sound. “Gods, I should have known better. You’re a woman now. Of course you’d seek to pay me off and send me on my way.”

Suddenly she understood. “No, you – “

“No? I think I understand perfectly well, thank you. I don’t want your bloody excuses, woman, no more than I want your gratitude. Or your pity. Spit on that.” He turned to leave.

“No!” Sansa was never quite sure what possessed her in that moment, but she got between him and the door somehow, and stood her ground, scared as she was. “You will listen to me.”

“Will I? I –“

“You _will_ , I said! You are not the only one offended.” She let out her breath in a rush and folded her arms. “I am not some common whore, trading my kisses for coin and favours. How dare you. How _dare_ you. I am my own woman, a free woman, and I kiss whomever it pleases me to kiss. Not for duty, not for gratitude, and certainly not for _pity_.” She spat the word but she could feel herself shaking. Whether from fear of him or fear of the things she was saying, she was not quite sure.

“You’re no whore, I grant you, but you are a woman wed.” He sounded marginally calmer, and she took heart from that.

“I’m a woman wed, and my lord husband has more bastards than he cares to count. I can spare a kiss or two, if I choose it.”

Sandor rubbed a hand across his eyes, looking suddenly exhausted.

“Sit down,” she said. “Please. I never meant to give offence. It- it was so nice to talk to you again.”

He snorted at that last part but sat down nonetheless. She sat opposite him, smoothing her skirts, and refilled both their cups. They emptied them in silence, but it was not entirely unpleasant, though he did not meet her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last. His voice was harsh and she knew the words did not come easy to him.

She shook her head, colouring. “I should be the one apologising. I was too presumptuous, I never thought... I never meant to force myself on you.”

He snorted again. “As if you could, little bird.” But his voice was kinder.

She flushed still brighter, and they sat another while in silence.

“I used to dream that you had kissed me,” she whispered. “When you came to me during the battle. I could feel it, as if it had really happened. But you never did. I know that now.”

“I should have,” he muttered. “Given you nightmares instead of dreams.”

Sansa felt she walked a knife-edge, a bridge over the dark. One wrong step and she would fall, but she reached out to him again anyway, sensing something changed or something understood. She touched his face, as gently as she could, fingertips light as ashes on the burned and blackened flesh.

“Please,” she whispered. “I can’t- I don’t have the words for this, please. I can’t explain, not now. But if- if you want to, please. I would, I... I want–“ She couldn’t say it. Her voice was barely working, her feelings roiling in her throat and threatening to choke her. She didn’t know what she wanted, not really. She didn’t know why she was doing this. She was just a silly girl, just a child. But she still wanted him to kiss her. She wanted the dream to be real.

He was watching her carefully, but now he closed his eyes for a moment, breathed in. “Don’t let me wake,” he whispered, more to himself than to her. And then he kissed her.

His kiss was fierce, was drowning, his mouth hard against her own. He kissed like a man terrified. He tasted of wine and blood and his beard was scratchy against her skin but it was so sweet and sad that Sansa felt her heart would burst. She kissed him back with everything she had, she poured herself into him. Her hopes, her fears, her memories. The laughter and bright halls, the children in the snow, the nights in the dark. Every thought she’d ever had she gave to him, not caring if she lived or died, only that she kissed him.

And his hands were tangled in her hair, his arms crushed her against him, his breath was ragged on her cheek. And yet for all that he was gentle, so gentle, as if she were a bird in truth and he held her between his jaws.

He ripped her dress when he pulled it off her, but she didn’t care. His hands were rough and calloused on her bare skin, on her shoulders and her spine and her breasts, but she loved it. She was desperate to be touched, to be held and kissed and swallowed whole by him. She tried to pull his clothes from him but he was too big for her to undress on her own and the fabric was too tough for her to rip. He understood well enough though and she whimpered as he drew away, but moments later he returned to her and it now it was his bare skin against her own, his coarse hair rough against her breasts, and it was too much, far too much.

And then he was picking her up and laying her down on the thick Myrish carpet and she was being smothered beneath his weight but it was the sweetest weight she’d ever known. They could not have stopped now, she knew, not even if she had wanted to. For all his initial reluctance she had set something loose inside of him somehow, she had freed him from his own restraints just as she had set aside her own. They could no more stop now than they could reverse the tide of history, but she didn’t care, she wanted this, more than she had ever wanted anything, and her own wanting terrified her. But she could feel the muscles of his back moving under her hands and the moonlight made a map of his scars and suddenly her body was full of light and heat and the taste of swelling music and there was no room for thinking anymore.

Sansa had only lain with her lord husband before that night, and only a handful of times. Her bedding had hurt less than she had been told it would, and Harry was always gentle, but even so she had not been able to understand how people risked as much as they did for this, for a few minutes of sweat and movement. The whole exercise made her nervous. She never knew what she was supposed to do, or when, or how, and for all his kindnesses she knew that Harry preferred his other women, the ones who knew how to please him. It was worse when he tried to please her. It felt nice, yes, but never... Never anything more than that, even though she knew it should be. It was like dancing at a ball or eating sweetmeats. Pleasant enough, but that was all. And it always made her feel hopeless, that she should be so bad at this, and yet have no one in the world to teach her how to make it better. They had trained her to be a lady, but they had never trained to her be a wife, and she hated them for that.

But this was different. She never thought about it, she never needed to think, she just let herself _feel_. She felt like flying, crying, dying. Her head was thumping and her heart was spinning. She felt like she had drunk the oceans, like she would overflow, like she was hardly human any more. And she didn’t feel hopeless or ignorant or childish or useless. She just felt.

They hardly said a word. They didn’t dare. The quietness was a spell they didn’t want to break. In the darkness and the silence the rest of the world could not intrude and their secret stayed safe, stayed uncorrupted. And afterwards they lay in the dark and she watched the embers of the fire and counted his slow heartbeats and wondered at the feeling of his heavy arms around her, his presence at her back.

She must have slept, though she did not remember sleeping, but when she woke he was gone and she was alone on the floor. Almost as though he had been a dream in truth, but when she saw the empty flagon and the bruise flowering on her wrist where he had gripped her she knew it had been real.

She did not expect to see him again.


	2. Mercy

She told Ellard that he had been a friend from her childhood, the boy who’d first kissed her, who’d been thought dead but had actually been living in Lannisport all this time under a false name. She asked him to keep it to himself, that her friend had a new life now he did not want disturbed. The old steward understood. He was loyal to the family, but fond of her as well. No doubt he had kept enough secrets for her lord husband that keeping one for her as well did not seem too much to ask. He had smiled and nodded and told her that no more would be said of it. Her other task came a fortnight later, when Lord Harrold returned. She came to him that night, saying how terribly she had missed him. He was only too happy to remedy her loneliness. She thought it unlikely that she was with child, when wedded couples often went years between pregnancies, but even so she did not want to drink moon tea and be certain. She knew it would be prudent, and yet... She didn’t.

When weeks later the maester smiled and congratulated her, she wasn’t sure quite how to feel. She was delighted at the thought of a child, of course she was. She had always wanted to be a mother. But she found herself hoping sometimes that her child would be _his_ , even knowing how much trouble that would cause. If it was a girl it might not matter so much, but if it was a boy... if Harry’s heir were not a child of his body, but bastard born... No, that would not do. No matter how many bastards her lord husband might father, his heir could not be baseborn. It would not serve. And yet her secret heart kept hoping, even as her waking mind prayed for a girl.

And when her son was born... No, she could not be sorry then. He was a perfect little thing, all red and squalling with a fuzz of hair the exact colour of her own. But it was his eyes that told it, those grey-brown eyes so dark they looked almost black. His height came later, but it was the eyes first. It was strange to see those eyes so innocent, so young. She told her lord husband that her father had grey eyes, and her sister Arya too, and it was true. But though years later his brother would have her father’s eyes, and another her father’s brown hair, it was not Eddard Stark that her firstborn resembled.

She named him Florian. She had always planned to name her sons for family but she couldn’t, not this one. She might even have named him Sandor, if she could. But she couldn’t, so she named him instead for the song she had meant to sing and didn’t. For all the goodness and promise in the world that she wished his father – his true father – could see, but he couldn’t. Perhaps even hoping that maybe, one day, he might see his son and understand that goodness. Even if only for a moment. It would be enough.

Soon after Florian’s birth, Sansa undertook another project. Whether it was the circumstances of her own child’s birth, a discarding of old prejudice or a simple surge of kindness, she did not know herself, but she decided to take every one of Harry’s bastards into the Eyrie under her protection as her father had once done with Jon Snow. Maybe it was only that she felt no reason to be jealous, as her mother had been, not being in love with her lord husband. Or maybe she only wanted to fill her halls with laughter. They had been sad and quiet for far too long. She did not tell Harry all these thoughts, though, and it took some time to persuade him. Truth be told it was not so much that he objected as that he simply did not understand why she should want it. But she managed it at last and she made her first trip the very next morning.

She travelled with only one knight and met the mothers alone. She wanted to show them that she was sincere. The first woman she met was called Alda, the daughter of a farmer in the Vale, recently married and heavy with child. She was slim, with fine straight hair and a practical manner. She was prickly too, and proud, but Sansa found herself warming to her for all that. Her daughter Sedda was eight, the eldest of the bastards. She was tall and skinny for her age, with her mother’s brown hair and serious face, but she was pretty when she smiled, her ordinary features made special by Harry’s dimples and Harry’s big blue eyes.

“She’s a good girl, my lady,” her mother said, ruffling the child’s hair, “and smart too, but she knows the value of hard work. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

“I’m not here to steal your daughter,” Sansa assured her. “I only want you to know that if Sedda ever comes to my door I will welcome her with open arms, and take her in among my own children. She can learn needlework and numbers, languages and music, dancing and riding, whatever she prefers. She could be a Septa, or a knight’s wife, or a lady’s maid, or she could return to you when she’s older and help you on the farm again. Or she need not come to us at all, and I promise you I will not consider it a slight if you choose another path for her.”

“Oh no, my lady, never fear. I know a good chance when I see one. But if I may ask... What made you seek us out? Most noble ladies would die afore admitting their husband sired a bastard. Not that I’m ungrateful, you understand, just curious.”

 “Don’t worry, I understand. I know it seems strange.” Sansa smiled. “When I was a girl in Winterfell, I had three trueborn brothers and one sister, but our bastard brother Jon Snow was raised with us as well, as one of our own. At the time I didn’t really pay much mind to him, perhaps because my mother found his presence hard to bear. But to my sister, and my brother Robb, he was our true brother, their closest friend. They loved him as much as they ever loved me, maybe more. And now, well... I’m sorry now it took me so long to see it, but it wasn’t until the war, when we were all scattered and I thought every last one of them was dead, that I realised he belonged to me just as much as they did. And then afterwards, when I heard that he still lived, I was just as happy as I had been to learn of Arya, Bran and Rickon. Jon’s a man grown now. He’s Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, and I couldn’t be more proud of him. He’s a good man, and true, honourable as any knight. That old saying that a bastard’s blood is tainted is a lie, a cruel lie. I’m so glad I knew Jon now, and I want my son to know his brothers and sisters too, be they trueborn or baseborn. All children should grow up with other children, and all of us deserve to know our kin.”

Alda had listened quietly throughout, but now she smiled. “I trust you now my lady. Not that I didn’t before, mind, but now... I could tell you meant it, everything you said. And I’d be happy for Sedda to go to the Eyrie with you, for a few years at least. It’ll give her all the good things I never could, and I know you’ll look after her.”

And so Sedda joined them. The prospect of the second visit was almost worse than the first had been, Sansa was so afraid that Sedda would be the only bastard child in the Eyrie, lonely and feeling out of place. But she need not have worried. Little Emi was five and Olwenn, her mother, was a lady's maid and all too aware of the advantages a castle upbringing could give. Olwenn reminded Sansa of Myranda Royce, plump and garrulous with bouncing chestnut curls, and so she could not help but like her. Olwenn did not ask for an explanation either, as Alda had, and sent Emi back with her to the Eyrie that very day with a head full of instructions and good wishes. Emi had dimples and blue eyes, as Sedda did, but she had Harry’s sandy hair as well. The only ways in which her looks did not resemble her father’s were her curls and her plumpness. Her expressions even mirrored his, so much so that Sansa always felt slightly as though she were seeing double when she looked at her.

The last child, or at least the last that Harry could tell her about, was still a babe in arms, a bare four days older than Florian. Her mother was a whore in a brothel on the valley floor, the area Harry had been visiting when Florian had been conceived, so it did not take much imagination to guess the circumstances of Santarra’s begetting. Prela, her mother, was maybe fifteen, with a heavy Free Cities accent, but she spoke the Common Tongue well enough. She was thin as a knife, with sharp features, olive skin, black eyes and thick black hair. As far as could be told with a babe so young, Santarra was her mother made again. She did not take much persuading either, though in the end Sansa took Prela too, as a wet nurse for Florian as well as her own daughter. When the children were older Sansa would find some other position for her in the castle. The brothel was cramped and squalid, and Sansa did not intend to send her back there.

And so Florian acquired three sisters, none of whom were his blood kin. They were sweet girls though, and Sansa could not help but love them, especially the elder two, who looked to her to replace the mothers they had left behind. Sedda was quick and helpful, and adored her baby brother. More than once Prela had found her in the morning, curled up asleep in the chair next to his crib. And Emi was sweet as honey, befriending everyone from the maester to the kennelboy to the cook. Harry, for his part, was kind to them, albeit in a somewhat absentminded way. His attentions consisted mostly in an occasional toy, a pat on the head, or a sweetmeat at dinner, but Sansa was pleased with his efforts and the girls even more so. Florian received little more attention, but Sansa knew that once her son was old enough to hold a sword Harry would take a lively interest. She intended to give him brothers too, to fight with in the yard – though she was not in love with him, she loved Harry well enough. He was a good man and a good husband, and he deserved as many trueborn children as bastards. And it was so good to hear laughter in the halls again. The Eyrie had been too quiet for far too long.

It was very shortly after that that Sansa received a visit from her sister. She hadn’t seen Arya in six years, not since their father was executed. For most of that time she’d been certain she was dead. But if the girl before her now wasn’t dead, she wasn’t her sister either. Or at least not the sister Sansa remembered having.

She was as tall as Sansa now, and as slender. She might even have had the same woman’s figure, but her garb made it hard to tell. She was pale as she ever had been, but her hands were rough and scarred. Sansa remembered Septa Mordane saying that Arya had the hands of a blacksmith. It hadn’t been true at the time, not really, but it seemed accurate enough now. Her hair was the same ordinary shade of brown but it was longer now, her braid almost matching the length of Sansa’s own unbound hair. It was her face that had changed the most though. As children Sansa had always been the pretty one. Arya had been boyish and gawky, her face too long and her features too big. Sansa and Jeyne had called her Arya Horseface, and cruel as it was it had been apt. But somewhere along in the last six years her little sister had become beautiful. It was not the same beauty as Sansa’s own. Sansa took after her mother, whereas Arya’s features had none of the same softness. She did not have Sansa’s dainty nose, her pretty pink cheeks, the heart shaped face or the fullness at her browbones. Arya’s face was solemn, noble, a face made for mourning, with her proud grey eyes and high cheekbones. She reminded Sansa of nothing so much as Lyanna’s statue in the crypts below Winterfell, and Lyanna’s beauty had been in her sadness too.

Arya did not look sad though, only a little uncomfortable. She was dressed in a man’s clothing, in grey-black riding leathers stitched with steel plates and heavy boots that laced up to the knee, a thin sword thrust through her belt. Her heavy woollen cloak was pinned at the shoulder with a silver direwolf and the brooch was the only clue as to her high birth. They could not have made a stranger pair, Sansa thought, Arya in her gloomy fighting garb and herself in yellow silk and Myrish lace. Winter and summer, north and south, sadness and joy. But their figures marked them as sisters, and maybe something around the mouth as well. For all their differences, in truth they probably looked more alike now than they ever had before.

The girl-who-had-been-Arya seemed startled when Sansa embraced her, but she hugged her back tightly enough and was smiling when they let each other go. It was not easy though. As children they had hated each other. Now both of them were women grown, utterly changed from what they had been, but if this meant they were no longer enemies, they were not friends either. They were sisters only in blood and some small part of history. In truth, they were strangers.

But they tried, both of them. Sansa made them as welcome as she could, greeting every one of Arya’s company equally, lowborn and highborn alike. And Arya, for her part, wore dresses to dinner and made polite conversation with Harry and the rest of the household. It was more than a little strange to see Arya willingly brushed and gowned, but it amused Sansa to note that her sister’s outfits, however ladylike, were not anything a real lady would have chosen. She shunned bright colours and delicate fabrics and any kind of jewellery, and even when her hair had been fixed properly the styles she chose were simple. The dresses themselves were simply cut, easy to move in with no unnecessary fuss, one grey and one forest green. Sansa wondered whether they were entirely for her benefit, or whether there were others who would expect to see a lady rather than a soldier. She did not ask.

Arya’s company had only ten people; herself, seven guards from Winterfell, Lady Mormont’s youngest daughter Lyanna and the Glover ward, Larence Snow. They stayed a bare week in the Eyrie. They had business elsewhere, her sister had explained. Bran was Lord of Winterfell now, with two of Howland Reed’s children as his advisors and Rickon sent to squire with the Umbers. They were rebuilding, slowly but surely, but the one thing the North lacked was men. Men to clear the snows, fish the rivers, repair the villages. Men who would be loyal to House Stark and fight under the Direwolf banner if anyone thought to steal their land from them again. But the Northmen their father had known were long gone, dead or scattered by war, and so her brother’s solution was to go to the outlaws in the riverlands, the homeless in the towns, all those with no loyalty and no hearth to call their own. He meant to offer them houses and land in the villages and as much protection as he could give, asking nothing in return but loyalty. But Bran could not go to them himself, so he sent Arya. She had only been home a fortnight when she left again, but she had spent time with the outlaws herself during the war and that alone made her a better envoy than most. Sansa promised to visit Winterfell as soon as she was able, and waved her off from Sky.

The war had changed Arya, and Sansa at least thought it was mostly for the better. She was no longer the rude, rough, unkind girl she had been. True, she was if anything even less ladylike now than then, but Sansa had seen enough of the war herself that she was less inclined to disapprove of her sister’s skill with a sword. Arya was still practical, still bluntly honest, still mischievous, but all the things that had made her hateful had faded away somewhere over the years. Sansa was glad of that, and wondered what differences her sister saw in her.

Only one thing about the visit bothered her. On the second day, she had introduced Arya to Florian, now four months old. Arya had doted on him as much as anyone not overly used to children could be expected to, and said how handsome he was. But then she had looked to Sansa and said, “and he’s a bastard.”

It wasn’t a question. Sansa was taken completely off guard. “What? No, of course he’s not a bastard, he – “

“You don’t need to lie to me, Sansa. I’m your _sister_. You can trust me.” Arya looked hurt, and Sansa felt ashamed.

“Of course not, but... I’m just afraid. How did you know? If you can see it, others will as well.”

Arya shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’ve learned to see a lot of things that other people never notice, and it’s not obvious. It’s his eyes.” She gestured at the crib. “I’ve met your husband. His colouring is so fair, it’s not likely that anyone in his family would have had eyes as dark as that. Which is still fine, because people will assume they come from you. But I know our family, and I know we don’t have eyes like that either.”

Sansa hadn’t known what to say to that. Now that Arya and Florian were side by side it was plain that their eyes were very different shades of grey, different colours entirely. But she had told everyone he had Stark eyes. She felt panic bud inside her. Arya stood up to leave.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-,” she trailed off, looking awkward, and Sansa suddenly remembered that her sister was still only sixteen, barely a woman, no matter what she might have seen. “I won’t say a word,” she finished. Arya never asked who the real father was, and for that much at least Sansa was grateful, but still she worried.

Sansa believed Arya would keep silent, but she found it harder to believe the assurances that no one else would see what she had. It seemed too unlikely. But then again, she supposed, there was nothing she could do now in any case. Nothing except hope against hope that her little sister had the right of it.


	3. Reunion

Sansa left for Winterfell as soon as Florian was old enough to travel. Harry did not entirely approve, but he understood and that was enough.

It was still winter when they left, had been winter for nearly four years now, but the life of the kingdom did not stop. The Kingsroad was kept clear of snow and Sansa rode in a small carriage with her son. Their party was small, only the two of them and two household knights to guard them. Ser Derris was a grizzled old man who said little but was among the kindest souls Sansa had ever met, and Ser Anwey was young and bright and full of songs. They slept in inns along the way and showed no sigils. Florian looked spellbound out the windows, just as intrigued by cattle as by castles, and when he grew tired she held him on her lap and whispered stories to him. He was too young to understand them really but she told him anyway, stories of Ser Arthur Dayne and Aegon the Dragonknight, of the children of the forest and the dragons of Old Valyria, of Florian and Jonquil and Jenny of Oldstones. Tales Sansa thought she had forgotten years before came flooding back to her in a rush as she whispered until she could feel her own childhood all around her, smell the summer snow and the woodsmoke from the hearth and honey cakes hot from the ovens. And she was going back to that, she thought suddenly, back to where she had been a child. And even though she knew it would be different, achingly different, in her mind they were all children still. Arya Horseface and Bran the Climber and Baby Rickon and Robb with the fuzz of his first beard, fighting in the yard with Jon and Theon Greyjoy.

The reality, of course, was utterly different, as she had known it would be. The Winterfell that rose out of the frost to greet them was a shadow of what she remembered, almost a ruin. The walls were stained black with fire under their coat of frost and the new wooden doors were crude and ugly. Some of the buildings still had holes in their roofs, or lacked roofs entirely, and the yard was full of snow that had not been properly cleared away. But it was the silence that was strangest. There were no animals, no children, and only the barest handful of guards. In a heartbeat Sansa gained more understanding of Arya’s mission than any of her sister’s words had been able to impart.

Sansa did not recognise the guard at the gate, but he greeted her as 'm’lady' with a salute and a warm smile. His name was Regytt Porley, he told her, and he’d been in Winterfell the last three years. He was from the west originally, near Lannisport, but he’d always been cold-blooded and so the North suited him just fine. He was an officer, Sansa judged, though not the captain. He was thin with a hard face that would have easily looked cruel, but his garrulous nature did not allow it. Sansa liked him. He saw the carriage and horses into the care of a groom and called a shy girl of maybe twelve years out of the kitchens to show Ser Derris and Ser Anwey to their quarters – after Anwey delivered a sleeping Florian to a crib, that is – before offering Sansa his arm and escorting her through the snows to the solar that had once been her father’s.

The inside of the keep was an improvement on its exterior, though Sansa knew there were many rooms that would have lain untouched and desolate since the war. But the rooms they passed through were warm and clean, with hangings on the walls to cover the stains left by fire. Some of the hangings were rough and worn, and a few even looked like they might be old stable blankets, but Sansa could appreciate the idea nonetheless. Better this homeliness than to be constantly reminded of all that they had lost.

Regytt opened the solar door for her, after a brisk knock.

“Your sister, m’lord. The Lady Sansa.” And then he closed the door and Sansa was alone with her little brother for the first time in almost eight years, having believed him dead for almost all of those.

Lord Brandon Stark, her brother, sat on a cushioned window seat with a piece of parchment curling in his lap. He was sixteen now, nearly a man grown, and yet she could still see the child in him. His eyes were wide and solemn in a pale face, the dark blue colour he shared with her flecked by a green that she didn’t remember. His features were fine, his auburn hair in need of cutting, and despite the hint of stubble on his jaw Sansa thought he looked almost girlish. It was her own delicate bones she saw, she realised; the prettiness of Catelyn rather than the handsomeness of Edmure or Robb. A sweet face, but not manly. The face that in the stories would be given to a singer or a prophet, not a warrior.

But that was fitting too, she supposed, since Bran would never be a warrior now. His legs were stretched in front of him and she knew that they were useless, both from the way they rested and from how slender he was. Any other boy of sixteen would be beginning to carry muscle from hard training in the yard, but Bran was as slender as she was. He was dressed like a lord though, in a silk brocade tunic and silver direwolf brooch.

“Sansa,” he said, and his voice was deeper than she remembered. “I knew you would be safe.”

And then he was reaching out to her and she was hugging him, her child and her lord and her brother, holding onto him with everything she had.

They talked for hours and she found her brother changed and yet exactly as she remembered. He had always been wiser than his years, he had always had a gentle heart, but he had grown fey in the years between them and at times she felt she talked with a god, or a ghost maybe.

Rickon came later, with flushed cheeks and sweaty hair from horse races in the woods. His breeches were muddy and his tunic was torn but she hugged him too, though in truth he was even more a stranger to her than Bran or Arya had been. Rickon had been only a baby before the war and now he was a boy of eleven, a mirror image of Robb as she remembered him, but he was not Robb. Rickon was different. Rickon was wilful and solitary by turns, prone to changes of mood as sudden as winter storms. He was charming when he chose to be but he angered far too easily and he would not let anyone close to him. The gods had stolen his childhood and in that, perhaps, he was the unluckiest of all of them.

Bran hoped to tame him by sending him to squire at Riverrun. The Umbers had tamed him somewhat in his first squiring there, but there were limits to even their resources. Bran had already made the necessary arrangements with their Uncle Edmure and Rickon was eager, though he tried to hide it. He would be travelling with Sansa’s party when they left, as far as the Green Fork. Their uncle would send men to meet him there so he need not travel alone along the Trident.

There were only a handful of people living in Winterfell now. Bran and Rickon, though Rickon would be leaving again soon, two grooms, one cook, three serving girls and a bare ten guards. There was no master-of-arms so Rickon was being trained by guardsmen; good fighters, but not one of them a knight. The so-called cook was only a girl, but she had served in a kitchen since she was ten which was more than the others could claim. There was no armourer, no stablemaster, no steward, no maester. Bran saw to the accounts himself and the new maester was due to arrive in about a month, but in the meantime he was aided in his lordly duties by Meera Reed, the girl who had been his companion through all the war and all her brother’s strange adventures. She was older than Sansa but much smaller, with hair cropped close like a boy’s and shrewd golden eyes. It was clear that she and Bran were close, but Sansa did not sense anything more than that between them. Maybe it was that Bran was a cripple, she thought. In ordinary circumstances, any woman would be eager to wed the Lord of Winterfell. But then again, Meera did not seem like any woman Sansa had met before.

Neither Jon nor Arya arrived that night, nor the night after, but soon the first of Arya’s travellers began to straggle in. They were outlaws from the Riverlands for the most part, angry men with no wives or children to slow their passage. Once they might have been ordinary, Sansa thought. Builders and bakers, landlords and drunks, singers and second sons. But the war had changed them, all of them, until nothing was left of the men they had once been but the skins they wore and the sound of their voices.

Bran lit roaring fires in the hearths of the Great Hall and had hot food and strong ale flowing freely every night. He left their father’s seat empty, preferring to eat on the benches with his pilgrims instead. It was a good idea and they all followed his lead, guards and grooms and Rickon and Meera, and Sansa herself as well. Every meal she sat by a different man, learning names and listening to stories. They needed these men, every one of them, but even more than their strong arms they needed their hearts. Winterfell needed men to love it and serve it and be loyal to it, no matter if they stayed within the castle walls or scattered as far as Last Hearth or White Harbour or the Rills.

The night Jon arrived, Sansa was sitting by a blacksmith from King’s Landing who had been knighted by Lord Dondarrion himself, before he died for the last time. He was of an age with herself, a tall man and heavily muscled with blue eyes and black hair. His face might have been handsome if he smiled, but though he was courteous to her he spoke little and seemed lost in some unhappy private world. Sansa thought he looked familiar somehow. Maybe she had seen him in King’s Landing, before the war, but the girl she had been then would not have paid much attention to a mere blacksmith, so perhaps not. She didn’t know and he didn’t seem likely to tell her, so she set the thought aside and was turning back to the food in front of her when the Lord Commander arrived.

If Bran was still a child and Rickon was a stranger, then Jon Snow was a man far older than he should have been. It was strange to see him in blacks, for a start, and the Lord Commander’s silver chain around his neck was stranger still. His build was that of a man in his prime and the lines of his long face were as she remembered them, but his tangled dark hair was streaked with silver in places and his gaze was a hundred years old. The skin around his left eye was badly scarred and he walked with a slight limp. The sword across his back was strange too, Valyrian steel like their father’s sword Ice had been but shorter, with a wolfshead pommel.

He spotted Bran straight away and the two men embraced fiercely, Jon half lifting Bran from the bench. Rickon next, though that greeting was more awkward. Rickon was a stranger to all of them, it seemed, not only Sansa. When Jon spotted her he looked less certain, but Sansa was already on her feet.

“My lady,” he said, inclining his head with a small, sad smile. “As beautiful as ever.”

Sansa made a small noise of exasperation and threw her arms around him.

“You are my brother too Jon,” she told him, as his arms came up hesitantly to return her embrace and he patted her awkwardly on the back. “You always were, and I’m sorry it took me so long to see it.”

He didn’t seem to know how to answer that, but there was happiness mingling with the confusion in his face when she released him.

He would only be with them for a few days, she learned. The seven kingdoms might be at peace but beyond the Wall there was danger still, though the rangers believed that the worst of it was past. If not for that, Jon could never have come. As it was he had left his command to the Lord Steward and meant to return within the week.

Arya arrived two days after Jon, heading a caravan of almost two hundred smallfolk. They had suffered in the blizzards along the Kingsroad and two of the most elderly were sick and ailing, but hot food and warm blankets soon brought them back from the brink, if not quite back to full health.

As soon as she had seen her charges safe and settled, Arya closeted herself away with Jon for a full day and night. When they emerged both were drawn and tired looking and, though Sansa found it hard to credit, Jon’s eyes were red raw as if he had been weeping. From then they were always together, be it fighting Rickon in the yard or hearing the petitions of the travellers or even just at mealtimes. But then those two had always been closer than any of them, rivalled only by Robb and Theon. Sansa envied them, and wondered what it would be to have a friendship so strong it could survive years and wars and leagues upon leagues, even when both people returned almost unrecognisable as their former selves.

The Great Hall was filled to overflowing these days, but Sansa noticed that the blacksmith she had sat beside the night of Jon’s arrival no longer came to table. She happened to mention as much to Arya one night and was astonished to see her sister stiffen in alarm.

“Do you know him?” Sansa asked her.

“I don’t know,” Arya said with feigned indifference. That was noteworthy in itself. Arya had become disturbingly adept at hiding her emotions at some point in her travels, and it was unusual for her facade to slip. “Maybe. But the world is full of blacksmiths. What did he look like?”

Sansa described him as best she could and Arya nodded. “That’s him.”

“Who is he? That is, if you don’t mind telling.”

Arya shrugged. “He was my friend, once. But that was a long time ago. I don’t know who he is now.” She said no more on the subject and her self-assurance reasserted itself, but Sansa noticed that Arya did not join them at the next meal, leaving Jon’s side for the first time since they’d been reunited.

All too soon, Sansa and Florian had to return to the Eyrie. Jon had returned to the Wall more than a fortnight previously and Arya was helping to settle abandoned villages the near the Dreadfort. Most of the travellers had left by now, barring those who would stay at Winterfell permanently. Among their number were several of Lord Dondarrion’s outlaw knights, who would provide some sorely needed experience and leadership in the garrison. Sansa did not know where Arya’s blacksmith had gone. Bran had offered him the job of armourer, she knew, but by the time she left an older man from the Fingers held that post. He must have refused it, though she did not know why he would. Perhaps he and Arya had quarrelled and he wished to put distance between them, or perhaps he was simply too proud to serve. Some men were like that. And yet she still could not think why he looked so familiar.

They left Rickon at the Green Fork in the hands of Lord Edmure’s men before continuing on to the Vale. Florian had grown during their time in the North. He was able to walk now and trying to run, his babyspeech beginning to make sense, and his auburn curls growing so long they fell into his eyes and tickled him until he tried to pull them off.

And so Sansa returned to the routines of her life as Lady of the Eyrie. She spoke of small things with her husband, shared his bed and entertained his guests. She sang to her son and told him all the stories she remembered, and some others that she didn’t. She taught Sedda to dance and Emi to sew and Prela the names of all the mountain birds so that she might teach them to her daughter in turn. She managed the accounts with Ellard, embroidered tablecloths for the dining hall and helped the serving girls to arrange wildflowers in tall glasses all around the castle. And in the evenings, when she had some time alone, she walked in the gardens and gazed out her high windows and wondered at the life that had brought her to this place.

She was content, as far as she could tell, and during the next three years she bore Harry two more sons. She named them for her dead father and brother, Eddard first and then Robb. Little Ned was his sire made over and looked nothing like his namesake, but Robb had auburn hair and Tully blue eyes, though he was a frailer child than her brother had ever been. Her children were her joy and her breathing, every one of them. Solemn Florian and shrewd Santarra, inseparable as twins. Honey-sweet Emi and laughing Ned, more alike in looks than any trueborn siblings Sansa had ever known, and gentle Sedda just as devoted to Robb as she had been to each of the other little ones before him. She loved them all, the bastard girls too, but Florian was her brightest star, her firstborn and her fiercest secret, his place in her heart built as much from her fear for his future as from the impossible dream that had been his begetting.


	4. Justice

It was shortly after Robb’s birth that they received the raven from King’s Landing. There was to be a tourney, the first since the one to honour her father’s appointment as Hand of the King long ago, and all the great lords and ladies of the realm had been called to attend. Harry was eager as a new-made squire to be back in the lists after so long, but Sansa could not help but think back to the other tournament. She had been just a child then and when Ser Loras gave her a red rose she had felt her heart would burst, but she remembered Sandor Clegane too, though at that time she had still been afraid of him. He had unhorsed Jaime Lannister and told her the story of his scars in a dark field in the middle of the night and saved Ser Loras from his brother when no one else was brave enough to interfere.

In retrospect, she thought with a smile, it had been quite a comprehensive introduction.

Lord Harrold was not the only man in the Vale who was keen to sit a tourney horse again. By the time they set out for King’s Landing their party included no fewer than fourteen knights keen to prove their worth, and almost as many squires. Sansa and Harry and their sons took rooms in inns all along the way, as did several of the more senior knights, but most were consigned to tents along the roadside. Despite the winter chill, Sansa did not pity them too much. The snows were holding off for the nonce and the tents were spacious and well supplied with braziers and hot meals from the inns’ kitchens.

They arrived to a city bright with flags and bunting under a crisp white sky. The stink of King’s Landing was the same as ever though and Sansa found it, if not quite reassuringly familiar, then at least evocative. She had had good times here once, it reminded her, before all the bad.

The Targaryens feasted them all that night, every nobleman and knight in the seven kingdoms. Sansa wore her new gown, a beautiful thing of pale green silk with collar and sleeves of silver Myrish lace and a narrow panel between her breasts as well. The bodice was edged with tiny opals and the dress was embroidered all over in silver thread with outlines of countless different types of summer flowers, with dragonflies and little birds dancing between their stems. She wore opals at her throat as well and had her handmaid braid and twirl her waist-length hair into the most elaborate style the girl could muster. It was lovely to enjoy court finery again, and lovelier still to see all the other lords and ladies in their multi-coloured plumage.

Over there was Margaery Tyrell, thrice widowed now and as lovely as ever in blue and yellow satin with golden ribbons in her hair. Her brother Willas in the chair to her left in quartered green and gold, and Garlan on her right in quartered green and burgundy. Garlan’s Leonette was nearby, handsome in plum but still weak from childbirth, and with her Eleanor Ambrose, timid Alla Tyrell and Desmera Redwyne in blue and indigo and scarlet with rings glittering on their fingers. There was dark-haired Ser Russell Merryweather, splendid in white and gold, flirting with pretty Bethany Blackwood in emerald silks pinned with tiny copper birds at breast and wrist and fingers. Sansa’s uncle Edmure looked pale in Tully red and blue with his dainty wife Lady Roslin in dove grey beside him and a protective hand on his daughter’s shoulder. Mellara was only ten, but already terribly pretty, her auburn hair spilling almost to her waist like a fiery river against the simple white of her dress. She saw her brother Rickon too, laughing with some other highborn squires. Herself and her brother aside, the only other Northerners there were two plump granddaughters of Wyman Manderly, and Sansa hoped desperately that the queen would not take the poor attendance as a slight.

But the North was not the only region to be poorly represented. The riverlands and the westerlands had both lost most of their lords and fighting men in the war, but compared to the decimated stormlands even they looked populous. The new lord of Storm’s End, Arstan Selmy, was there with his daughter Jeyne and Edric Storm, who had only recently returned from exile in Lys. There was only the barest handful of knights and the only other lords were ladies in truth, Lady Alynne Connington of Griffin’s Roost whose sex had protected her even as her kinsmen had died, and Lady Brienne of Tarth, who had seen more of the war than most men and yet somehow had survived it.

Lord Tyrion Lannister, Warden of the West and Sansa’s former husband, had the largest party of knights saving their own from the Vale. She felt his eyes on her once or twice, but he did not approach her. Princess Arianne of Dorne was present as well, resplendent in sheer white with golden clasps gleaming against the dark skin of her biceps, accompanied by almost all of her bastard cousins who seemed to be enchanting and frightening the menfolk of the court in equal measure.

But it was Queen Daenerys herself who drew the eye. She was every bit as beautiful as they said, Sansa thought. She looked almost unearthly, a goddess fallen to ground. Her violet eyes seemed to glow, her features were almost too flawlessly drawn and her masses of silver gold hair were the only crown she needed. Her crimson silks were crusted with black diamonds that glittered in the lamplight and yet the mother of dragons outshone even those. The Kingsguard was strange to her too. Ser Barristan Selmy had been reinstated as Lord Commander but the other knights were young freedmen trained in Meereen whose names were even more incomprehensible than their accents. Like most of the realm, Sansa knew them only by nicknames; The Lash, The Red Lamb, The Black Fang and the Three Brothers. The Queen’s Hand, Jorah Mormont, was a westerman and her young Naathi advisor spoke the common tongue beautifully, but the rest of their Queen’s closest companions were as foreign as her kingsguard. Dothraki horsemasters, sellswords from the Free Cities, freedmen from every corner of the world, even the eunuch soldiers called Unsullied. And yet, somehow, this strange queen who had not set foot in Westeros between her birth and her invasion had united all the seven kingdoms in harmony where countless native lords had failed. Sansa had never felt more intimidated in her life.

It was easier the next morning, when the tourney began in earnest. The snow was falling gently beyond the shutters when she woke, the feather-light drifts turning the sprawling city into a child’s toy, or a baker’s confection, all icing and sweetness. Lord Harrold had spent the night in his pavilion like all the other competing knights, drinking and wenching she did not doubt, though even now she found it hard to mind. She took her bath slowly, enjoying the warmth and choosing a lightly spiced oil from the Free Cities for her handmaids to dab at her wrists and collarbones. Her dress was warm pink wool with wide sleeves and a generous hood, lined with soft white fur, and over that a cloak of pale grey. The filigreed silver brooch that pinned it at her throat was her only ornament and her hair she left mostly unbound. It coiled in her hood like a sleeping red serpent, gleaming in the white light of morning.

She dressed her boys warmly too, in fur and wool and leather boots, until even golden Ned looked every inch a northern lordling. Robb she left with Prela in the warmth of the Red Keep, but she took her older sons by the hand and hurried laughing down to the stalls with them so they could watch the squires and horses before the tourney proper began.

They kept out of the way of the competitors, exploring the wares of vendors that had come from near and far to capitalise on the opportunity for trade. The atmosphere was festive, with children shrieking through the horses’ legs and behind tent poles, and her boys were quickly persuaded to join in. Gradually they moved from the blue and white Arryn encampments to the green of the Reach, and ultimately the red and gold of the Lannisters. The sight of the colours sent a small frisson of fear through her, raising the hair on her arms, but Sansa reminded herself that Cersei and Joffrey were long gone – Tyrion was Lord Lannister now, and for all they said of him he had never given her reason to fear.

With that in mind she took her time, poring over bolts of fabric from across the narrow sea, trout brined in honey and delicate gold jewellery. Thought most vendors recognised her as a lady, few knew her by name, and she enjoyed the relative anonymity. However, it was not to last - she had just paid for a small comb embellished with stars when she was hailed by a voice at her elbow. “Lady Hardyng! Formerly of Lannister, formerly of Stark, what a pleasure to see you!”

Her former husband materialised as if her thoughts had summoned him, breaking all the smallfolk into bows and curtesies around them both, and yet she could not help but be happy to see him. They had just fallen into conversation when Ned appeared at her hip, staring at Tyrion in open curiosity.

“You’re very small,” he announced, with the gravitas only a five-year-old child can muster.

“Ned,” she scolded, “what did we learn about manners?”

He sighed heavily, ducking his head in a half-hearted bow. “My name is Eddard, my lord, it’s a pleasure to meet you. And you’re _still_ very small.”

Tyrion laughed, waving away Sansa’s half-formed apology and offering his own bow in return. “My name is Tyrion, and it’s very nice to meet you too. I’m stopped growing when I was your age because I didn’t eat my beets.”

Ned’s eyes went huge. “Really?”

“This is the heir, then?” Tyrion asked, “Eddard Hardyng?”

“No, actually,” Sansa cast around, looking for her eldest. “But I don’t see his brother anywhere. Ned, where’s Florian?”

The words had no sooner left her mouth when he appeared, at seven years of age already several inches taller than the Lord of Casterly Rock. Unlike Ned, whose fine baby curls were beginning to give way to hair as straight and yellow as straw, Florian’s auburn corkscrews were more defined than ever, albeit a little tangled from his adventures, and his dark eyes were solemn in his flushed face.

“Mama, look!” He tugged on her hand, “We found some puppies and this one followed me, all the way from the stables!” Sure enough, a pup tumbled into view moments later, panting happily. Florian scooped it up in his arms, where it licked his nose and cuddled up against his chest. “Can I take him home? I know you said at Wintertide that I had to wait until I was older, but that was _ages_ ago.”

Sansa was no expert but it looked like a Westerlands hunting dog, only a few months old, with floppy ears, big paws and a glossy russet coat only a shade or two lighter than her son’s. She thought of Lady and her heart ached, but there was only one answer. “No Florian, he already has a home. Look at his collar – he’s probably part of some Lord’s prize pack.”

Frowning, Florian pushed aside the hair at the pup’s neck. “A red collar,” he noted, “with...a little gold lion.”

“Aha,” Tyrion said, “in that case you might be in luck, as that means he belongs to me.”

Sansa looked sharply at him, and he shrugged. “I’d need to talk with our kennelmaster, to be sure he has nothing planned for this dog in particular, but if not I would be happy to make a gift of him.”

“Lord Lannister, I couldn’t –“

He held up a hand to forestall her. “Please, Sansa. Consider it a belated wedding gift, to remedy some small part of all the bad blood that has flowed between our houses over the years.” He turned to Florian and Ned. “Why don’t we go together to see our kennelmaster? That way you can see the other dogs too, and hear his answer for yourself.”

Florian nodded eagerly, clutching the pup tighter. “See that pennant, with the gold lion?” Tyrion pointed to where it fluttered high overhead. “That’s our main pavilion. We’ll meet you there.”

The boys took off at a yelling run, allowing Tyrion and Sansa to follow at a more sedate pace. “Before you try to thank me,” Tyrion interrupted, just as Sansa opened her mouth, “just bear in mind that this means the heir to the Eyrie will grow up knowing that his best friend in all the world was a gift from Lord Lannister.” He winked. “So you see, my generosity has an ulterior motive.”

“Then you think your kennelmaster will agree?”

“I don’t foresee a problem. He’s a grouchy bastard, but the more you like dogs, the more he likes you, so I think your boy should be fine.”

“I’m surprised to hear he’s at the tourney at all, in fact,” Sansa mused. “I thought trade in dogs and horses and the like was reserved for the great market.”

“You’re right of course,” he nodded. “I don’t think there’s any plan to trade, but he fed me some horseshit about the pups needing to be socialised with strange people and strange smells. In truth, I think it’s more for his own sake – he used to ride himself, so he fancies the idea of judging all the bright young sers for seamstresses.”

On reaching the Lannister pavilion, Tyrion took a moment to introduce one of his youngest knights, Dallyn Fossaway, who would be riding in the lists that afternoon, before leading them along rough slatted walkways through the maze of more muted tents that housed the Lannister retainers. They passed several large guard barracks with cooking fires outside and smaller round tents pinned with gewgaws that she suspected to be makeshift brothels before arriving at the last in line, an uneven structure of a lopsided tent and a wooden pen leaning up against each other. As they approached, a muscular black dog that was going white at the muzzle sat up and barked twice in warning. The pup bounded forward to greet it, a swirl of similar puppies in all shades of white and brown tumbling out of the pen to join in.

“Ho there,” Tyrion called, stepping up to the tent. “Are you decent?”

At the gruff reply, which Sansa could not quite make out, he disappeared inside. She heard the rise and fall of voices, one bright and clear, the other deep and harsh.

“Which pup?” That was the kennelmaster, stepping outside at last. Tyrion followed, gesturing to Florian. The man grunted, squatting to be on a level with her son.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Florian.”

“How old are you?”

“Seven.”

“And have you ever had a dog?”

“No.”

“Hmm,” he scratched his chin. “Well, if I let you have this pup, he’s yours to care for, you understand? You feed him, you train him, you clean up his mess. No leaving it to the servants. If you’re to be his master, you’re to act like it, you understand?”

Florian nodded furiously. “Yes. I’ll do everything, I promise.”

“Good.” The man reached out and stroked the pup’s soft head, just once. “He’ll need a name, too.”

Florian frowned, deep in thought. “Justice,” he announced at last. “Because he’s to help me be a lord one day, and Mama always says that a good lord should be kind, fair and just.”

The kennelmaster snorted, clambering to his feet. “And this is your mama, I suppose?”

He turned towards Sansa for the first time, but she remained frozen as she had been since he’d stepped out of the tent. Because the kennelmaster was a big man, with a hood on his homespun tunic that threw his face into shadow despite the morning sun – and this time she knew to recognise him.

He stared at her, and his silence spurred her into action, conscious of Tyrion watching the exchange.

“A pleasant surprise to see you alive and well,” she said, dropping into a curtsey. “And I thank you most kindly for the pup.”

“It’s Lord Lannister you should thank, m’lady, not me,” he muttered, awkward. “Excuse me.”

Tyrion raised his eyebrows at his abrupt departure, but shrugged and turned back the way they had come. “I hope seeing Clegane didn’t bring back unpleasant memories for you,” he said. “I didn’t recall him being one of your tormentors, but perhaps I was mistaken.”

“Not at all,” she shook her head. “He was always kind to me, in his way, but it’s still a shock to see him now. I’d thought him dead.”

Tyrion seemed to accept this and they fell into easy smalltalk, laughing at how Florian was already attempting to teach Justice to walk at heel. When they reached the tourney ground they parted ways and Sansa spent the next several hours cheering Harry in the lists with her sons, trying to ignore the way her head was spinning.


	5. Peace

That night Sansa dressed for the banquet with care, twisting her hair into a perfect ring at the crown of her head and binding it with gold ribbons and her new gold comb. Her dress had a full skirt of lined, deep blue silk that swirled around her in a heavy flare as she moved and was bound tight at her waist. The bodice was a filigree of golden lace studded with tiny peach-coloured gems from Dorne, tight to the skin from throat to wrist, and underlaid with thin gold gauze to preserve the barest modesty.

She spent the evening on Harry’s arm, whose relative success at the lists had him in good spirits despite the beating he’d taken in the melee. The maester had identified three cracked ribs and a head injury besides, but after a few cups of wine he was cheerful enough and she doubted his occasional winces would be enough to keep him from the famous brothels of King’s Landing.

She enjoyed the night and even had the chance to speak directly with the queen, but she still found herself looking for a face in the crowd, looking twice at every tall knight or yellow-garbed lord, even though she knew he would not be there. By the time she retired to her rooms near midnight, bidding Harry goodnight with a chaste kiss and an indulgent smile, her resolve was firm. She waited another hour to be sure the last of the diners would be gone before donning a long, hooded cloak and venturing out into the city.

With her hair and finery hidden she passed mostly undisturbed. One drunkard tried to catch her hand as she passed, but an icy instruction to unhand her was enough to make him withdraw, muttering apologies. Although the path looked different in the dark, with the Lannister pennant as her lodestone it did not take her too long to locate the kennelmaster’s tent. Sansa paused to gather her nerve, but the old mastiff at the door only allowed her a moment before giving her bark of warning.

“Who’s there?” The rough voice was so familiar now, she wondered how she had ever mistaken it. She moved close, breathing deep before answering, “A friend,” and slipping past the flap.

The interior was dim, with just one low-burning lamp on a stool by the entrance. A large sleeping pallet took up most of the space, but her attention was immediately drawn to the man before her, crouched awkwardly to fit the ceiling, dressed in breeches and undershirt with one hand on a tourney sword and chainmail pooled at his feet.

“You were competing?” she exclaimed in surprise, her planned approach fleeing her mind.

“Aye,” he huffed a laugh. “What’s a tourney without mystery knights? Knocked a few lumps out of your lord husband besides."

“The maester says he has three broken ribs.”

 “You’re not looking to me for sympathy.”

“No.”

“He’s lucky that’s all I did to him, with the image of him fucking you burning in my brain.” He scowled, turning away. “And you bearing him three shining young lordlings besides.”

“Two,” she said, before she could stop herself.

“What?”

“Two... lordlings. For him.”

“And what does that mean? I remember clear enough what the Imp said. There were three, he said; a babe at the castle, the little blond sprat and the boy with the dog.”

“Florian,” she supplied, nodding. “He’s tall for his age, isn’t he?”

He snorted. “I suppose, though I don’t see what it matters. What was he, seven?”

“Seven, yes.” She folded her arms. “You’ve met my lord husband, and you met the men of my family too, long ago. None of them all that tall.”

“So he’s special, is that what you want me to say?” He pulled off a gauntlet, throwing it harder than necessary to land on top of the pile. “Who knows, seven years ago – maybe some of my seed got loose in your belly after all.”

He meant to be cruel, she could tell, but she could also tell the moment he realised what he had said. He went suddenly, terribly still.

“No,” he growled.

Her silence was her answer. “ _No_ ,” he repeated, “I won’t credit it. The heir to the Vale is no more my seed than old Tulip there by the door. I’m no yearling. Women have –“ he waved a hand in vague gesture, “women have ways of preventing these things.”

“Of course,” she said. “But I... I chose not to use them.”

“ _Why?_ ” he whirled back to face her. “What possible reason could you have? Do you hate Hardyng that much?”

She folded her arms, staring up at him. “It’s not a matter of how I feel about Harry, but of how I feel about _you_ ,” she said. “ _You_ were my protector. You taught me that a pretty face doesn’t mean a pretty heart, and the kindness that can hide behind rough words. You wanted to _save_ me, to take me away, with no thought to your own advantage. I used to dream that you had kissed me, you know that, but even when I was older, when I knew it wasn’t true, I always wished it had been. I spared second glances for every tall knight, every man with dark hair after you, and when I married my lord husband it was _you_ I wished for when I said my vows, even though I thought you dead! And I always wished I had had the chance to thank you for all the times the lessons you taught me saved my life, to tell you, after the war, that I finally _understood_ , that I had seen the cruelty of war and I had finally learned to protect myself, just as you said I should. So when you came to me, that night – “ she threw her hands in the air, “- when you came to me, when I learned that you were alive and well and I finally had the chance to kiss you, to lie with you, just as I had always wanted – tell me, how could I not want to keep that close to my heart? How could I face taking those precautions, making those memories no more than a dream, nothing more than what I’d had before? It was always _you_ , can’t you see that?” She finally paused for breath, feeling the tears shining in her eyes. “I have never wanted _any_ man the way I have wanted you.”

There was a long, quiet silence. He looked at her as if he had never seen her before, searching her face for something, though she could not guess what.

“Let me see you,” he whispered at last. “Let me see the fierce lady my little bird has become.”

He sank to the edge of the pallet, looking up at her as she lowered her hood, then dropped the cloak from her shoulders. As she reached up to pull the first comb from her hair, Sansa was aware of feeling... _powerful_ in a way that was entirely unfamiliar. She had always been pretty, beautiful even. She was used to men looking at her with admiration, with lust, with appreciation. But as she stood in that small tent, aware of the way her hair and her dress were gleaming in the lamplight like so many glowing stars, Sansa felt that she had never before been regarded with such an intoxicating combination of hunger, admiration, and _awe_.

Piece by piece she pulled her hair down around her shoulders, making a small pile of pins and ribbons and golden combs on the floor. He just watched her, silent, but it didn’t make her nervous. Instead it felt like a mark of respect somehow, like he might, finally, begin to understand how the woman she now was might reconcile with what she had always felt for him. When at last she stilled, the red strands flowing loose, he spoke again.

“Come here,” he said quietly. “And turn around.”

She did as he said, crossing to stand between his knees. She turned her back to him, shivering as he moved her hair to drape over her shoulder. With impossible delicacy, he turned his calloused fingers to undoing each tiny button in turn, his gentleness raising gooseflesh on her arms. Neither spoke further, and the silence held the weight of anticipation. It felt like a ritual somehow, something holy and full of meaning, and Sansa could not quite bring herself to regret the blasphemy of that thought. At last, when the last button was free, she felt him lean forward to rest his forehead against her spine, just at the small of her back. She felt a wetness on her skin and she shrugged, allowing the dress to fall away and leave her nude but for her smallclothes. She turned and knelt on the floor before him, catching his face in her hands. His eyes were closed, almost in denial, and she brushed the lids with her thumbs.

“Kiss me, Sandor,” she whispered.

His eyes opened at that, lips quirking slightly in the first genuine smile she had ever seen from him. Her heart ached in that moment, to see the warmth for the first time on the face she had once found fearsome, and to see for the first time since that night seven years before the dark grey-brown eyes she saw reflected every day.

“It’s many years since I heard that name,” he said. He lifted a hand to cup her jaw, moving forward to meet her. He was hesitant as a boy, stopping a breath away from her lips, no matter that this was not the first time. “Sansa,” he breathed, and then his lips met hers.

In contrast to that first night, when everything had burned with a painful kind of desperation, as though her heart might burst from her chest, this time everything was slow and utterly, impossibly gentle. He kissed her as though it were the first kiss for both of them, wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her closer as she sifted her fingers through his hair. She ached for closeness, climbing into his lap so she could mould her form to his. She let her hands wander, revelling in the sheer weight of muscle under her fingers, the strength and size of him, safe as castle walls. He chuckled slightly when she dipped beneath his tunic, breaking the kiss long enough to pull it over his head. For a moment she just sat back and allowed herself to regard him, taking in the planes of his chest, the scars, the coarse black hair. Some of her hunger must have showed in her face because his face twisted in a wry expression. “You’re far from your pretty sers now, little bird.”

“And I regret not one step that has brought me here.”

She touched him with more confidence now, claiming him for her own. She slipped a hand beneath his laces and felt a thrill at the heat of him, the way he filled her grip. Before he could protest she had freed him and dropped to the floor, carefully placing a kiss on the underside of his shaft in a way that made him swear and thump a fist against the pallet. When she took his tip in her mouth he swore again, a string of expletives this time that made her blush.

“You weren’t so wordly-wise when last we lay together,” he muttered. “Your lord husband must have taught you some tricks.”

She paused, unsure how to interpret his comment. “Well – “

“Oh no, I mean nothing by it,” he laughed, and she heard the edge of incredulity. “I don’t give a damn how many times he beds you or how many sons you bear him, if I’m the one you choose when it’s your own choice to make.”

She smiled at that and he returned it, the expression hesitant and unpracticed. “Whatever god decided I deserved this,” he said quietly, “be he red or North or South or something else entirely, need only make himself known and I’ll dedicate the rest of my days in sacrifice to him.”

She returned to her task in earnest, hollowing out her cheeks and drawing him into her mouth, swirling her tongue around his shaft and pressing hot open-mouthed kisses along his length until he was twitching under her touch.

“Enough,” he growled, pulling her up to kiss him, rougher than before. “I want to see you ride me, girl. I want to see you above me in all your glory as I come undone.”

He hooked a thumb in the seam of her slip, ripping it away from her as easily as if it had been made of spiderwebs and using his hands on her hips to guide her into position above him. His manhood stood proud between them and she met his gaze as she sank onto him, seeing something tender and true reflected there.

He stretched her, filled her completely, and Sansa had the strangest aching feeling, as though some part of her had been missing without her knowledge and suddenly slotted into place again. He swore again, more quietly, as he reached the hilt and then began to move, the rocking momentum quickly building into something deep and sweet that had her gasping and writhing and making obscene sounds she would have been ashamed of in any other circumstance. His pace quickened and he reached between them, brushing the bud above her entrance with a calloused thumb. She gasped, high and sharp, and he moved faster still, losing all restraint. His thumbed brushed her again and again as he did, in time with his thrusts, until at last she saw stars, her breath escaping her in an almost-scream as he groaned below her something that might have been her name, her true and given name, his hands like a vice on her hips and her hair a halo of fire in the lamplight.

When she came back to herself she was pillowed against his chest, sweat sticking their skin and his arms firm around her. “Let me stay with you,” she whispered. “Let me share your bed this time.”

“Won’t you be missed?”

“Not before the tourney starts. We have time.”

“Aye,” he whispered after a long pause, his voice cracking a little. “It seems we do.”


End file.
